Has anyone looked into this case? It supports a slim mini-itx board and the cpu heatsink connect directly to the aluminum case where the heat is dissipated. Not too many cases like this out there and it looks nice as well.

It does not look good, especially when mounted on the back of a monitor.

There seems to be no ventilation at all, no air-holes for air in or out, which means that the only method for removing the heat are the aluminium ribs via the internal air temperature. As we know air is a poor conductor of heat, so the "heatsink-case" (like all others) is not effective at heat removal at low temperatures - like we want to keep our PC's at (not 50C+).

The CPU might be well in check with its integrated cooler (the case), but I suspect that everything else will cook (HDD, SSD, motherboard RAM etc).

As for the case being mounted on the back of a monitor, the fins are 90 degrees off of where they should be, and like the Antec ISK110 most monitors are lent backwards meaning that the "hot" area is underneath which only makes matters worse. I have just abandoned an ISK 110 Server project because the case can get HDD's to temperatures I dont want to see, this Akasa case will roast HDD's unless I am mistaken.

I would love to be proven wrong, but I will wait for a competent review first.

I've got one of these arriving tomorrow, along with an Intel DH61AG a Core i3 3220T and a 120Gb Intel 330 SSD. I'll let you know how I get on with it. I'll also try it out with a Xeon E3-1265L, just to have a quick look at how strict that 35W TDP limit is on the CPU.

There seems to be no ventilation at all, no air-holes for air in or out, which means that the only method for removing the heat are the aluminium ribs via the internal air temperature. As we know air is a poor conductor of heat, so the "heatsink-case" (like all others) is not effective at heat removal at low temperatures - like we want to keep our PC's at (not 50C+).

Looking at the gallery on the Akasa page, it actually has a CPU block which conducts heat directly through it into the casing. This is similar to some of the Logic Supply fanless systems I've tested in the last couple of years. It should work at least OK if the mechanical integrity is decent. What's most interesting is only 2 Intel thin-ITX boards are listed as compatible. But other thin-ITX boards should fit if they have the same CPU location as those Intel boards.

Case itself also has two holes on each side of the case (can not be seen on the akasa's photos), that is probably for chipset cooling. Anyway, it is nice fanless case. Tested it with celeron g530 (65W) and it was not that hot.

Nice solid case, integrated heatsink as Mike says, one of the design goals of thin-itx is a standardised CPU placement, so all thin-ITX boards should have the socket in the same place.

CPU temps are OK, chipset was getting a bit toasty, hit 75deg at one point, but after redoing thermal paste and tightening up the retaining nuts on the cpu block, the whole system seems a bit happier. The sides are vented so air can flow through the case. The case does actually get warm to the touch.

Using the Intel DH61AG board with a Core i3-3220T, a single 8Gb so-dimm and a 120Gb Intel 330 SSD, idling at around 15W and peaking at 32W using the brick bundled with the case. Obviously its never going to be a gaming case, but as an entry-level type office PC, its fantastic. It boots Windows in 17s.

We're also going to pair it with the Q77 thin-itx board and the i5-3470T for a vPro enabled office system.

Given Akasa stipulate a 35W TDP max, I'm not sure I'd put a 65W part in there, but as I mentioned, I've got a 45W Xeon E3-1265L arriving in a day or two, so I'll pop that in for a couple of hours to see how it all copes. If it copes with a 45W part, then that opens up the possibility of using the i7-3770T, which would be awesome in such a tiny, silent box.

All-in-all, considering the price, and that it includes the 120W brick, I'd say its a fabulous piece of kit.

I'll post some more detailed info on it later, but I'm pretty impressed so far.

However, both the Intel boards that the case supports have mSATA capability, so you could couple an mSATA boot disk with a 2.5" drive. From what I've seen from our suppliers 60 and 120Gb mSATA disks aren't too far in price from their 2.5" equivalents. Personally I'd go for the Crucial m4 Slim mSATA drive which is available in up to 256Gb. Given the minimal space and passive cooling, youd want a pretty cool running drive in there.

There may be a chance if you did that but I wouldn't like to say. It's pretty packed in there. Akasa also sell super-slim SATA cables that might help. I guess if there's room for a 12mm thick 2.5" drive, there'd be room for a 9.5mm drive with a naked SSD cable-tied to the back of it somehow. Obviously I can't say for sure that it would work and given the way the case is put together, its very difficult to see exacatly how much clearance there is, but there is a definite possibility that it might work!

Unfortunately due to an issue I'm having with discrepancies of temp reporting with the Xeon on a couple of different boards I've not had chance to put it in the Euler.

As for efficiency, the brick is made by Great Wall and given the cost of the overall package can't be very expensive, so I doubt its the most efficient of its kind. That said, we're talking about a system that's pulling a maximum of 32w and that pulls 15 - 16w at idle. It would need quite a leap in efficiency from whatever its at to make a noticeable difference. I can try googling the part no for the brick but that won't be until Monday.

Delta_42: Have you tried the Xeon E3-1265L yet, I really want to know if it works as I want to use the 3770T with the DQ77KB motherboard in this case.

I've got the Xeon in there now. Just to clarify, I made an error earlier, its an E3-1260L Sandy Bridge (quad core Xeon, 45W TDP) rather than the Ivy Bridge E3-1265L.

... and I've got somewhere to put my coffee so it won't get cold!!

CPU temps whilst running burn-in test software are around 65 degrees. PCH is at 75 degrees and the case is hot to the touch.. The strip down the middle of the case closest to the CPU is uncomfortably hot to touch. It certainly seems that the 45W CPU is a step too far. Obviously Akasa felt the same when they rated it for 35W TDP. I might run that chip in there for my own uses, but its definitely an 'at your own risk' sort of thing, I certainly won't be offering our systems built off this chassis with a 45W chip from what I've seen so far.

Its a shame, but it doesn't change the fact that for a nice everyday PC for general use, or as a silent HTPC, its a lovely little case. Most people won't need more than a Core i3, and with 8Gb and a decent SSD, that makes for a very snappy system.

I'm unsure if to get the DQ77KB or DH61AG board for this as there seems to be a lot of complaints around the web for the DQ77KB being buggy with some being DOA on purchase.

People on the Intel forum seem to feel the DQ77KB is more like a beta board than a retail board as the CPU support list for it has shrunk with loads of supported CPUs being removed and it now has less than the older DH61AG.

I rebuilt the Euler system with the Xeon again, with better thermal paste. I had been using the cheap stuff that came with the case. Now I'm using Zalman ZM-STG1 which I prefer because with the brush and bottle its very easy to get a nice thin and even layer.

With the system 7 or 8 minutes into a burn-in test which has all 8 CPU threads running at 50% and tests 2d and 3d graphics at the same time. (Same test as earlier post)

Now with a better application of TIM and a reseat of the motherboard CPU temps are looking a lot better.

Speedfan is reporting CPU temp and all 4 cores at 50 deg. +/- 2 deg C. and the case is much cooler to the touch.

If I run Prime95 to max out all 8 threads the CPU temp rises to 64 deg and the case gets hot to the touch. However, that's a pretty extreme usage scenario.

Just shows how important the thermal paste is with this small case and i'm glad now i didn't buy shin etsu thermal pads by your results.

When you had it apart again did it seem like a bare SSD circuit board could be shoe horned in or do you now feel it would be a impossible task?

Sorry i didn't answer this before. I do think you could squeeze two 2.5" drives in there, but it would be a very tight fit. A couple of thoughts:

You wouldn't be able to use the mounting holes as provided. You'd have to shift one of the drives over towards the edge of the case.

You'd need to mod a way to mount to the top-underside of the case. I thought about velcro mounting, but if it falls it will fall right on top of your MB, which might be a bad thing .

Remember when you do it that you are essentially mounting the drive to the underside of the CPU heatsink. You don't want to do anything that will transfer too much heat into the drive. Glue-based mounts (like sticky-back velcro) will probably fail due to heat.

You'd probably have to do a custom SATA power cable because both drives would be flush against the top-underside of the case - you'd have to have "end of chain" connectors for both.

You'd need special cut SATA cables at the exact right length. There is no room to bundle up any extra cable. The "thin" SATA cables might work even with a bit of extra bundled up - but not sure I trust them for SATA-III speeds with a good SSD (even though Intel seems to bundle them with their 520's...).

I know it would be less hassle to use the Msata but it's just annoying that the mini slot runs at half speed and the Mini Slot is not set as a bootable device unless you have intel raid drivers installed so it's a pain swapping between windows and linux and such.

I know it would be less hassle to use the Msata but it's just annoying that the mini slot runs at half speed and the Mini Slot is not set as a bootable device unless you have intel raid drivers installed so it's a pain swapping between windows and linux and such.

The highlighted part is not accurate. The mSATA can be set as bootable in the BIOS whether you run intel raid drivers or not. To the BIOS its just one of the SATA-II ports from the chipset. I am running my little VMware server booting off of the mSATA. And while testing - before stuffing it all int the Euler - I had "regular" SSDs with W8 and some other tools that a had hooked up for testing. Swapping back and forth between drives for boot was trivial.

Awesome thanks piglover for confirming that , as what i posted is the reason i was put off buying a Msata so i'm glad to hear that is incorrect.

The reason i thought this to be true is because someone asked on Intel Communities why they couldn't boot a Msata on thier DQ77KB and Dan from intel said it would need the raid drivers to make it bootable so i wrongly assumed this was correct.

Thanks Mike. Nice review of a good case. I really like mine. Except that the special-order import price came out a bit higher than the target price Akasa quoted you.

Not only is the review well done, you're photos are pretty impressive. I had a lot of trouble getting good shots showing the heatsink "finks" with the all-black case.

I've noticed that it stays pretty consistently warm even with the recommended 35W max CPU. I was rather surprised that you didn't find problems with the 55W Pentium. It could be mainly because that chip rarely, if ever, reaches the top of its thermal profile. I'd worry trying to run a 65W chip - especially one that might spend more time actually near 65W like an i7-3770S - but 45W parts should work real nice.

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